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Our two weeks together did fly by and the days were filled with all things ordinary. Ordinary days, but because Dale was with us, I loved each one. Dale had no honey do list, but managed to fix things anyway. He easily corrected my home improvement mistakes and reattached various towel bars that Zeke had pulled off the wall. He then decided to go into battle against the tent caterpillars occupying the weeping cherry out front. Dale fell back on the old Manry solution of attacking a large swarm of creatures by hitting the nest with a big stick. When the caterpillars started dropping out of the tree onto his shirt and hair, I decided it was best to leave that job to him. We took a bush walk that greatly needed a Kirk accompaniment, since there were rocks to fall off of and water to fall into. Later, we all chose fish for the backyard pond. Dale who was most concerned with water quality bought 3 algae eaters and named them Tuck, Roll, and Golem. He also bought water plants. He spent quite a bit of time fixing his pond. Josiah chose a bright orange goldfish, the bravest of the lot and named him Napoleon. Abby chose a white and black little fish and named her Jewels. She’s sparkles just like you, Juliet. Gabe chose a hard to find orange and black fish and named him Dynamite. Zeke chose a beautiful orange and black fantail and named her Cleopatra. I decided to join the party a few days later and added Mohawk who has an orange stripe and Pirate who has a black eye patch. Hopefully, we’ll remember to feed the fish. Dale will get upset if he returns to find his pond redo neglected. A loud frog seems to have joined the fish. We hear him at night croaking out “my pond…my pond…my pond”. Last year, Gabe transported tadpoles from the pond to the creek down the road when he and Dale cleaned the pond. Maybe one came back to tell us off. Along with watching the fish, we watched the birds. When I first saw the bright blue bird on my feeder, I thought that the bluebird of happiness had come to pay a visit. After consulting my bird book I believe it is an Indigo Bunting instead. Sometimes what brings me happiness isn’t exactly what I planned would bring me happiness. The last thing we worked on together was the puzzle I had started in January. We finally finished it and discovered that a piece was missing. It looks good, but there is a piece missing. That’s how I feel when Dale is away. I am pretty good, but a piece of me is missing. These last two weeks, I had no missing piece and I enjoyed them very much.

Dale arrived safely home at 0745 Sunday 13 April and will be home for the next two weeks.

My and Josiah’s transportation adventure to Atlanta provided us with much suspense. On Friday, the day we flew there were thunderstorms, tornado watches and equipment malfunctions in Atlanta. We checked in quite early for our flight and I noticed that all the flights ahead of us were delayed 2 hours. I asked the representative why our flight was not delayed and she replied, “Oh, they must have caught up.” “Sure they did”, I thought. “More likely it just hasn’t been posted yet”. As suspected, by the time we sat down at the gate, the flight was delayed. An hour after the flight’s scheduled departure, they started to load the plane. Josiah and I had seats toward the front, so we were waiting for our turn. With the plane 3/4 full, they stopped loading because Atlanta had completely shut down for a hail storm. 30 minutes later, we loaded the plane full of pessimistic travelers who were convinced we were not leaving Virginia that night. Once everyone was loaded, we waited another 30 minutes for permission from Atlanta to leave Virginia. The flight had a bit of turbulence, so the cabin crew decided not to offer the meager service that was due: a bag of peanuts, cookies, or crackers and a drink. At some point they must have felt a bit of remorse and walked through the plane handing out bags of peanuts and a cup of water. I thought fondly of flight service in Australia which is so far above any flight service in America. When we landed, Atlanta airport was a madhouse, full of travelers who had missed connections because of the delays and cancellations. Josiah and I made our way over to the MARTA (Atlanta train system). On the way, I bought 2 individual pizzas for dinner thinking we would eat on the train. Well, you are not allowed to eat on the train. The airport is in south Atlanta and our hotel was all the way north. The train ride took 40 minutes. My favorite comment from the train driver was when he said, “We are axing you to be careful when you exit the train because the platforms are slippery.” I know if people are axing me something, I am in the south. After we got off the train, we had to get a cab to the hotel. I do know that English is not the primary language of cab drivers. However, for some strange reason, I expect them to speak at least a little English and to know where they are going. We got into the cab and I told the driver the name and suburb of the hotel. I asked him if he knew where that was. He mumbled something that sounded in the affirmative. He called back to his dispatcher and only Spanish could be heard in the cab. After he had driven around for awhile he asked me if he should turn right or left. Having no idea where I was or where I was going, I was at a loss. I remembered that I had the hotel information with driving directions and pulled it out and tried to hand it to him. The directions were written in English, of course, and he couldn’t read them. I started reading off road numbers and names in the hopes of arriving at a common location. When I said, “La Vista Road,” He got all excited. “La Vista Road! La Vista Road!”, he repeated. Then he asked me, “Right or Left?” At one point in this mini recreation of planes, trains, and automobiles, Josiah looked at me and said, “All this for a spelling bee?” “Yes, son, all this for a spelling Bee.” We finally got to the hotel at 10 pm, ate our cold pizza and went to bed. The next day after the bee, we wanted to take the train into downtown Atlanta. So, this involved another cab driver. The hotel called the cab and the driver spoke English fairly well although his native tongue was from Africa. We did manage to find a train station although it wasn’t the one I had asked to go to. I helped him out by pointing out places to drop us off while he was making u turns apparently at a loss as to which way to go. On the train ride home, Josiah and I tried to guess what language our cab driver would speak this time. Josiah went for French and I guessed he would be from India. We entered the cab to Spanish singing island music. He didn’t speak English either, but he did know where he was going. Friends who also attended the bee spared us from another cab ride by giving us a ride to the airport. Thus ended my pursuit of an English speaking cab driver who knew where he was going. If ever I find one, I’ll ax him if he’s the only one.

Inshallah is an Arabic word meaning “If God (Allah) wills it”. The phrase is used when Muslims refer to something happening in the future. They pepper their conversations with inshallah. For example, one of my Engineers may ask a contractor “When are you going to submit an updated construction schedule?” A typical response from a Muslim contractor would be “I will have the new schedule to you on Tuesday, inshallah.” This comes from an Islamic scripture that says “And never say of anything ‘I shall do such and such thing tomorrow’. Except if Allah wills it.” Sounds kind of familiar, doesn’t it?

Now when Tuesday rolls around and the contractor did not submit a new schedule, I’ll ask him why he didn’t submit the schedule. He’ll reply “mashallah” which means “God has willed it”. Inshallah has become almost an escape clause for not doing something you were supposed to do. This has made it a very popular phrase with the soldiers here in Iraq.

I spent the last two nights sitting at the airfield trying to get a flight to COB Speicher in Tikrit. It was time for the semi-annual Engineer Conference. I was there for the last conference in October 2007. Check-in for flights is 1 hour prior to lift-off. I was scheduled for a 2330 flight on Tuesday night. When I checked in at 2230, I was told that the flight was on a weather delay. Everyone was instructed to stand-by and wait for updates. An hour later at 2330, the person working the desk announced that the delay was still on and to stand-by again. The same thing happened at 0030 and 0130. Finally at 0200, the flight was officially cancelled.

When your flight is cancelled, that’s it. You are not automatically booked on the next flight. You must request a new flight. The catch is that all flight requests must be submitted at least 72 hours prior to the flight. But you can sign up for stand-by at any time. So I went back at 2120 on Wednesday to wait on stand-by for a 2220 flight to Speicher. At check-in, I was told everything was on schedule. The board showed the flight consisted on 2 Blackhawks. Each Blackhawk will typically carry about 11 troops in addition to the crew. So that meant 22 seats. There were 11 people that had previously booked for the flight, so that left 11 seats for stand-by. I think there were about 25 of us waiting on stand-by. Normally, you would think that the first 11 on the list would be told to wait, and everyone else would be told to go home. But that’s not the case because sometimes they have the wrong aircraft on the list. If the flight shows up with a Chinook instead of a Blackhawk, then that means an extra 30 available seats on that one bird. So in true Army fashion, once again, we wait.

Well, at 2230, the desk officer announced the flight was again on weather delay. This happened again at 2330. But at 2355, he gave us the good news, “it’s on”. He got us all organized in our different lines, one for scheduled passengers and another for stand-by passengers, in order of priority. We gave him our ID cards so that he could scan them into the passenger tracking system. He was finalizing his instructions at about 0020 when another flight operations person came out to report that the flight was cancelled. The birds had left their initial location, ran in to some bad weather, and had to return to their starting point.

Why didn’t I go to the Engineer Conference in Speicher? Mashallah.

Abby participated in her 6th grade science fair today. She did her experiment on whether smell effects taste. Grandpa, Grandma, Josiah and Gabe were her lab rats for the experiment. They all loved the chocolate, but weren’t too happy about the onion. She concluded that smell does effect taste, but she would have to eliminate the effect of texture. She made her display board and had to answer questions from the judges. When she came home from school she told me that the project next to her was completely gross. The girl had a cow’s heart under glass and did her experiment on clogged arteries. During the awards ceremony, the Best in Show was won by the cow’s heart girl. Working with a cow’s heart to win the science fair just wouldn’t be worth it for my daughter. Gabe, however, was greatly disappointed that he didn’t get to see the cow’s heart. For the last couple months, Gabe has been asking me how he can win a trophy. When he finds out that you get a trophy for winning Best in Show in the Science Fair, I fear what he’ll come up with to outdo a cow’s heart.